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Introduction to Character Animation - Blender PDF

184 Pages·2006·3.82 MB·English
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Introduction to Character Animation Blender Summer of Documentation Copyright © 2006 by Ryan Dale BLENDER OPEN CONTENT LICENSE Terms and Conditions for Copying, Distributing, and Modifying Items other than copying, distributing, and modifying the Content with which this license was distributed (such as using, etc.) are outside the scope of this license. 1. You may copy and distribute exact replicas of the OpenContent (OC) as you receive it, in any medium, provided that you conspicuously and appropriately publish on each copy an appropriate copyright notice and disclaimer of warranty; keep intact all the notices that refer to this License and to the absence of any warranty; and give any other recipients of the OC a copy of this License along with the OC. You may at your option charge a fee for the media and/or handling involved in creating a unique copy of the OC for use offline, you may at your option offer instructional support for the OC in exchange for a fee, or you may at your option offer warranty in exchange for a fee. You may not charge a fee for the OC itself. You may not charge a fee for the sole service of providing access to and/or use of the OC via a network (e.g. the Internet), whether it be via the world wide web, FTP, or any other method. 2. You may modify your copy or copies of the OpenContent or any portion of it, thus forming works based on the Content, and distribute such modifications or work under the terms of Section 1 above, provided that you also meet all of these conditions: a) You must cause the modified content to carry prominent notices stating that you changed it, the exact nature and content of the changes, and the date of any change. b) You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in whole or in part contains or is derived from the OC or any part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties under the terms of this License, unless otherwise permitted under applicable Fair Use law. c) The name of the Copyright Holder or contributors to the OC may not be used to endorse or promote products derived from this work without specific prior written permission. These requirements apply to the modified work as a whole. If identifiable sections of that work are not derived from the OC, and can be reasonably considered independent and separate works in themselves, then this License, and its terms, do not apply to those sections when you distribute them as separate works. But when you distribute the same sections as part of a whole which is a work based on the OC, the distribution of the whole must be on the terms of this License, whose permissions for other licensees extend to the entire whole, and thus to each and every part regardless of who wrote it. Exceptions are made to this requirement to release modified works free of charge under this license only in compliance with Fair Use law where applicable. 3. You are not required to accept this License, since you have not signed it. However, nothing else grants you permission to copy, distribute or modify the OC. These actions are prohibited by law if you do not accept this License. Therefore, by distributing or translating the OC, or by deriving works herefrom, you indicate your acceptance of this License to do so, and all its terms and conditions for copying, distributing or translating the OC. NO WARRANTY 4. BECAUSE THE OPENCONTENT (OC) IS LICENSED FREE OF CHARGE, THERE IS NO WARRANTY FOR THE OC, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW. EXCEPT WHEN OTHERWISE STATED IN WRITING THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND/OR OTHER PARTIES PROVIDE THE OC "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. THE ENTIRE RISK OF USE OF THE OC IS WITH YOU. SHOULD THE OC PROVE FAULTY, INACCURATE, OR OTHERWISE UNACCEPTABLE YOU ASSUME THE COST OF ALL NECESSARY REPAIR OR CORRECTION. 5. IN NO EVENT UNLESS REQUIRED BY APPLICABLE LAW OR AGREED TO IN WRITING WILL ANY COPYRIGHT HOLDER, OR ANY OTHER PARTY WHO MAY MIRROR AND/OR REDISTRIBUTE THE OC AS PERMITTED ABOVE, BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR DAMAGES, INCLUDING ANY GENERAL, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE THE OC, EVEN IF SUCH HOLDER OR OTHER PARTY HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. This PDF contains a snapshot of the Blender Summer of Documentation tutorial, “Introduction to Character Animation”. This PDF was generated on 19 Sept 2006. For the most current version (with corrections and clarifications, and links), please see the Blender wiki at: http://mediawiki.blender.org/index.php/BSoD/Introduction_to_Character_Animation Enjoy! -Ryan BSoD/Introduction to Character Animation < BSoD Contents 1 Welcome! 2 Feedback 3 Introductory material 4 Modeling 5 Materials and lighting 6 Rigging 7 Animation 8 Finished product Welcome! This tutorial is the result of about a month of intense work as part of the Blender Summer of Documentation. I created it with the hope of introducing many new users to Blender, as well as providing a resource for experienced Blender users. Even if you've never heard of Blender before, you will be able to do this tutorial. Enjoy! -Ryan Marenzelleria 05:46, 26 July 2006 (CEST) Note: The review in the latest Blenderart (http://www.blenderart.org/) 6 magazine (thanks Blenderart!) refers to three sections of the tutorial that were referred to in my original outline: envelopes vs. vertex groups custom bone shapes using the stride bone If you're looking for these somewhat advanced topics, they aren't in the current version of the tutorial yet. They're on the way. -Ryan Feedback Questions? Comments? Suggestions? Visit the support thread (http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=74704) at blenderartists. Introductory material Introduction: What to expect from this tutorial. Modeling Setting up the mesh - Start up Blender, add a plane, and set up symmetrical editing. Creating the mouth - start shaping and extruding the mouth. Face and eyes - Keep extruding the face, and add eyes. Finishing the head - Finish off the head. Neck shoulders and arms - Create the upper body by extruding neck, shoulders, and arms. Torso legs and feet - Create the torso and lower body. Materials and lighting Lighting - Add lights to the scene, and do a test render. Materials and textures - Add materials to the skin and eyes, and add textures to the skin. Rigging Upper body: building the armature - Build a skeleton for the upper body. Upper body: Weight painting - Configure the skeleton for the upper body. Lower body: building the armature and weight painting - Build and configure the skeleton for the lower body. Final rig adjustment. - Make some final improvements to the rig. Animation Animating a simple action - Animate a "Wave" action using the Action editor. Animating a walkcycle - Animate a walkcycle using the Action editor. Mixing actions with the NLA - Combine the wave action and the walkcycle action together in the NLA Editor. Facial expressions - Create a set of facial expressions. Adding sound and lip syncing - Use the facial expressions to lip sync to sound. Final animation - Mix everything together into a final animation and render the output. Summary - A recap of the tuTtohirsia pl,a agne dw aa sf ilnaaslt nmootedi ffireodm 1 7th:0e7 a, u16th Soer.ptember 2006. Finished product Here are some static poses of the character you'll create in this tutorial. The end product of the tutorial is 5-second animation of the character, including a walkcycle and lip sync. Ready? Start with the Introduction . . . Categories: Introduction to Character Animation | Blender Summer of Documentation BSoD/Introduction to Character Animation/Intro From BlenderWiki < BSoD | Introduction to Character Animation Blender Summer of Documentation: Contents | Manual | Blender Version 2.42 Contents 1 About this character animation tutorial 1.1 Why should I do this tutorial? 1.2 How long will it take? 1.3 Isn't this information available elsewhere? 2 Format of the tutorial 2.1 Main body 2.2 Side notes 2.3 Keyboard commands, mouse controls, and menu items 2.4 Notes 2.5 Downloadable files 3 Prerequisites 4 Caveats About this character animation tutorial This tutorial is designed to teach you the more advanced tools available in Blender. It's written in the spirit of "Gus the Gingerbread Man" tutorial: no prior knowledge is assumed. In other words you'll be able to follow this tutorial without any prior Blender experience. Why should I do this tutorial? Upon completion, you will have a fully rigged character (with facial expressions and a skeleton) and an animation - lip synched to sound, starring your character. You'll end up with the tools and knowledge to make your own character and make it do whatever you want. It's your one-stop-shop for learning many of the tools in Blender. How long will it take? Depending on your prior experience and how quickly you work, it could take anywhere from a single day to a month. Take your time and don't worry about finishing it within some time limit. It's not about the destination, it's about the journey: don't try to speed through this tutorial. Take the time to learn Blender -- it will pay back in the long run, when you'll be able to finish your own projects quickly and efficiently. Isn't this information available elsewhere? It sure is! I've repeated things that are found throughout the Blender manual, in other tutorials, and around the web. If I've used someone else's work for reference, I've cited that in the text. The advantage of this tutorial is that it compiles all of that knowledge into a single step-by-step guide. Format of the tutorial Main body The main body of the tutorial consists of steps to carry out and accompanying screenshots. Individual steps are indicated by bulleted items. Step one, with some explanatory text Step two Step three, and why we did it that way. If a screenshot is too small, you can always click on it for a larger view. In the text, I've tried to explain why you're doing a particular step in as well as how to do it. Side notes To accomodate the widest range of skills, I've tried to assume as little as possible on the part of the reader. To prevent beginning users from becoming lost and more advanced users from getting bored, I will introduce new topics About side notes and concepts as side notes that beginners can read and advanced users can easily skip over. Keyboard commands, mouse controls, and menu items This is a side note, which will introduce new commands or At the beginning of the tutorial, I've tried to include the hotkey or menu item for concepts. It is a way of separating each command. It's easy enough to skip over them if you know them already, out explanatory material from the but they'll be helpful if you take a break and come back later. You won't have to step-by-step format of main body of page back looking for the hotkey if you forget. the tutorial. Later on in the tutorial, I won't spell out often-used commands, since you'll have These side notes will contain a brief already learned them. explanation, relevant hotkeys or menu items, and a link where you Notes can find more information. Periodically you'll see a note like this: A note on notes: Notes like this one will warn you of common pitfalls, explain why some steps were taken, and to periodically remind you to save Downloadable files At the end of each major section, you can find a .blend file to download. If you get stuck, or want to skip some sections, feel free to download the file and start from that point. Prerequisites I've assumed little to no prior knowledge of Blender. As such, I take the time at the beginning of the tutorial to explain common tools and commands. An experienced user can cruise right through the first few sections quickly, while a beginning user should take the time to read the explanations. As supplementary material, check out the one-page Blender QuickStart Guide. Don't worry about memorizing all those commands. At each step throughout the tutorial, I'll remind you of the hotkeys or menu commands. With enough practice, you'll memorize the commands that are worth memorizing without even trying. Caveats Please keep in mind that this is only one way of doing things. There are many different work flows, and I'm only showing you the way I do it. I've tried to strike a balance between keeping the character simple enough so that a beginner can follow along, but complex enough so that you can learn more advanced techniques. Feel free to add more detail, make more complex materials and textures, or make a more complex rig. Consider this tutorial as a guideline for your own creations. Next: Setting up the mesh Previous: Index Back to Index Retrieved from "http://mediawiki.blender.org/index.php/BSoD/Introduction_to_Character_Animation/Intro" This page was last modified 08:49, 15 September 2006. BSoD/Introduction to Character Animation/Setting up the mesh From BlenderWiki < BSoD | Introduction to Character Animation Contents 1 Welcome to Blender! 2 Vital functions 2.1 Selecting 2.2 Undo 2.3 Saving 2.4 Loading 3 A fresh start 4 Add a plane 5 Mirror the plane Welcome to Blender! If you haven't already, please take the time to read the Introduction for important information regarding this tutorial. You can download Blender from www.blender.org (http://www.blender.org) . Blender is available for many operating systems: Windows, OSX, Linux, Solaris, and FreeBSD. Instructions for installation also an be found there. Once it's installed and started up, you'll see something like this: The default scene. In the default screen, moving from the top down, there is: 1. A top header containing the File menu, Add menu, and others 2. The 3D Window with some objects 3. The header for the 3D Window 4. The header for the Buttons Window 5. The Buttons Window Note: When you start Blender, a console window is opened. This is useful for feedback when doing more advanced operations. For now, you can safely ignore this window. Don't close it, though, or it will close the other Blender window as well. Let's get started! Vital functions Note: A note on abbreviations used in this tutorial:

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This PDF contains a snapshot of the Blender Summer of Documentation tutorial, “Introduction to Character Animation”. This PDF was generated on 19 Sept
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